


Jagged Sight

by Minato Shi (RaiWalk)



Series: (in)sanity has your name [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: ANYHOW, I mean, Mental Instability, apparent insanity, bizarre deaths, but - Freeform, he doesnt really die, its a toss up, kakashi the clueless missing nin, minato the horrified casualty, mine or the characters, not sure it counts as gore, pre ship, rin the jedi ghost, uh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2016-09-08
Packaged: 2018-08-13 20:46:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7985623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaiWalk/pseuds/Minato%20Shi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His whole being has been scooped out of him, leaving something empty behind. He's not sure what's filled it, but Rin isn't worried. He feels he should be, but...</p><p>He trusts Rin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jagged Sight

It’s a darkness, spread and silent, and Kakashi thinks. _Ah. This dream again._

There’s nothing, _nothing_ , around him. Maybe it is a lake beneath him. It seems to create ripples like one, but Kakashi doesn’t need chakra to stay afloat. He never does.

There doesn’t seem to be a pattern to these dreams, except…

 _There_. In a corner, further up, he feels the presence. A sort of darkness that makes his eyes ache. Kakashi closes them.

This dream was never particularly consistent, always half fractured, only happening when Kakashi actually slept at night.

There is always something about these dreams that disquiet him, but they’re easily set aside when he wakes. He remembers vaguely each time a dream begins, how twilight feels against his skin, even if there is no light.

How the strange presence darkens when he begins breathing here. It coils, seething.

Kakashi might’ve felt threatened if anything had happened on the other times he’d dreamed the same thing, if the presence actually moved beyond this seething and creaking.

But it hasn’t.

Kakashi’s also dreamed this dream enough times to remember that it is just a dream. Even if he is hurt here, the most lethal thing that could happen is waking up.

He’s tested it.

He’s led himself into a doze, even if he’s not sure how it works when he’s already sleeping, when he realizes it. The presence has moved, for the first time in months. It slithers and skitters, wavering from coming closer, but steadily making its way to him.

Kakashi can recognize, however, when someone has a grudge against him. He’s met enough people that hate him to recognize when the feeling is directed and when it’s not. This one… is a jumble. It revolves from unwavering focus against him, to spread-out outright hate.

It’s confusing. It’s like it can’t seem to decide if it hates Kakashi or just everything in general. But it’s hatred boils and seethes prickling against his skin, feels like being pressed against sandpaper. The hatred is a fixture, firm and never ending, only its focus changes.

Some strange part of Kakashi revels in the feeling of being pressed against something so volatile. It’s a change from people who underestimate him, worship him, or assess him as a threat.

There’s no fluctuation outside of this dream. There’s only steadiness. Kakashi hadn’t had a challenge in years. A fluctuation of feelings like these are bound to keep his mind interested in this puzzle.

Right now, however, he’s just tired. He turns back inwards, back into the doze the presence interrupted, even as it still comes closer by increments.

He’s pulled out of it when he realizes the presence is right beside him, now. The fluctuation remains, perhaps more violent, and each time the focus returns razor sharp to him, he feels his pulse quicken and his breaths come out in short puffs of air.

It is curious towards him, despite the fluctuating hatred.

He wakes.

* * *

He dreams.

It is further away, once again. But it takes less time skittering closer, and Kakashi feels he _should_ be threatened.

He’s not. Not only is this presence unable to hurt him, he wouldn’t really mind if it was. It wavers around him, circling, and Kakashi almost feels like prey. Maybe dead prey. Unmoving.

He keeps the stillwater sense to his muscles, relaxed and melted, and tries to keep his breathing steady despite how it brushes its very emotions against him.

The hand that grips his ankle is a shock.

He wakes.

A vague feeling of darkness slithers through his memories, and there is a throb where it had grabbed him with terrifying strength.

* * *

He dreams.

It is further away, this time. Wary. He’s not sure he wants to meet it. And yet… this strength… Kakashi thinks this is a strength that could hold him down and hurt him with little effort. It thrills him.

Nevertheless, there is still something about it that makes Kakashi keep his eyes closed.

He doesn’t want to stay on his back, so he turns to his side and curls around himself, tired of his day. Another mission in ANBU. Another restless sleep. This dream. He snuffles gently.

It comes to him quicker. Less skittering. Less wavering. Its focus razor sharp and steady. The grudge is still there, but… lessened. Resting under still, cool waters. It doesn’t circle him this time, stays at his back where he can’t see it even if he opens his eyes.

Its cool curiosity slides over Kakashi, and he feels like a butterfly pinned.

The hand makes him twitch, but not enough to wake him. It slides from his waist to his shoulder, up to his hair, down the side of his face…

It kills him with claw-like fingers stabbing deep into his left eye.

He wakes.

He has a headache and a stabbing pain in his eye, but it is intact.

* * *

For a week straight, it kills him in different ways.

A hand through his chest. A violent twist to his neck. It gets creative.

Even so, Kakashi refuses access to his left eye again. For all that he doesn’t mind everything else, the eye isn’t his, so he can’t allow it to be harmed.

Seven nightmares later, it tries for the eye again. Kakashi bats it away with a violent, seething snarl, a burst of chakra and a hand covering the Sharingan.

“ _Don’t touch him,_ ” he growls like the mutt many believe him to be, “ _You won’t hurt him._ ”

It doesn’t try again.

* * *

He dreams.

Once again left on this not-ground, Kakashi turns to his left, curls into himself and protects Obito’s eye. Everything else is fair game, and he’s made that clear, but the eye is something Kakashi will protect to his dying breath.

It is far closer this time, but it doesn’t move in for the kill. Instead, Kakashi feels a hand settle on his side. It presses with stupid strength, borderline painful for him, but doesn’t move.

And then one finger begins tapping.

It takes Kakashi a few moments to realize it is using a fairly simple code.

_why_

“ _Why what?_ ” he rasps, an undercurrent of violence.

_everything not eye_

“ _Why do you care?_ ” he grits his teeth. He’d prefer waking up with violent spasms because it maimed him again, not this conversation that barely feels real and tends towards viciousness with how its emotions still fluctuate the grudge against him. Kakashi is not stupid.

_want_

“ _No,_ ” he grouses.

_why_

“ _None of your business,_ ” he snarls again, “ _If you want to keep killing me, go ahead, but you’re not getting it._ ”

The hate and grudge and miasma skyrocket and suffocate him. He barely feels the hand pulling his heart out.

He wakes.

* * *

He dreams.

It takes less and less time to approach him each dream. Kakashi learns to quickly curl to his left, protecting Obito’s eye. It’s all he has left. Minato and Kushina try, but they’re distant, and Kakashi knows they have their own bubble of happiness.

Kakashi’s popped under rocks in a cave, and then was charred to pieces by his own hands.

Another week of it trying to reach his eye, and only once had Kakashi heard it screech, inhumanly, in frustration.

But it’s not trying for the eye this time. Kakashi doesn’t lessen his guard. The hand pressing with delirious strength returns to his side.

_mine_

Kakashi snorts. “ _Over my dead body._ ”

_easy_

Kakashi doesn’t deign to answer. If it doesn’t kill him this time, he might wake slightly rested.

_?_

It’s dark. “ _What?_ ” he breathes deeply. For all that he’s dearly protecting Obito’s eye, he’s still tired. Minato might keep him from missions, soon.

_return_

“ _There’s nothing you could give me,_ ” Kakashi resists the urge to open his eyes.

_why_

“ _No,_ ” Kakashi hisses.

_equivalent_

“ _Nothing in this world has enough value for that,_ ” he spits. And then forces himself--

He wakes.

* * *

He dreams.

It’s practically atop him, even as he quickly curls to his left. This time it is placid, appraising. The grudge is still there, tampered down.

Kakashi ignores it.

He’s wary and half surprised when all it does is curl against his back, claw-like fingers taking hold of his shirt and clutching it hard enough to hurt.

Kakashi lets it.

He wakes.

* * *

For months, Kakashi doesn’t quite dream. When he does, it curls tiredly against his back, an undercurrent of _trained to the bone_ in its aura.

Gradually, Kakashi relaxes. He still doesn’t quite trust it where Obito’s eye is concerned, but their backs mold to each other. Kakashi learns to count silent, trembling breaths, feels it learn his minute flinches and read his feelings by twitches on his back. Learns how the grudge and hate and violence cover an unyielding despair and absolute brokenness.

Kakashi thinks they are more similar than they realized.

On the anniversary of Rin’s death, Kakashi turns and buries his face in its back, crying silently for all that he doesn’t open his eyes.

* * *

He dreams.

He’s been dreading this. He doesn’t think it knows why he cried the last time, but Kakashi isn’t quite keen on finding out.

The grudge is still there, but it no longer feels smothering. It slithers over his skin, settles against his throat and feels like a blanket. It’s a dark feeling, but for some reason it now feels comforting in this dark place.

The presence settles against his back, almost pensive.

A hand crawls to rest over his hip.

_how_

Kakashi hums in answer, confused. There are a great number of things that can refer to, from how his hair is silver to how they are where they are, and he can’t parse over all of them.

_deal_

“ _With?_ ” he murmurs back. It has been calm for a while now, and hasn’t made a try for the Sharingan. Kakashi allows himself a half-doze as he talks.

_grief_

“ _How would I know? I haven’t,_ ” he feels his voice drip with bitterness.

_?_

Kakashi thinks on a boy that offered his hand and received spit insults. Thinks on a girl who offered smiles, thinks on a promise and a burning eye and everything he is not. Thinks on a couple that offers hopeful smiles and all he can offer in return-- “ _I don’t have a better answer,_ ” he shifts, pressing more firmly against the presence, “ _I’ve never been good for anything beyond following rules or killing people._ ”

There’s silence, the hand is frozen on his hip. Kakashi entertains the idea that it had thought he was better than he was. Dismisses it, because this is the presence that killed him for fifteen nights straight, and he still can’t muster feeling enough to be suspicious.

He’s empty, feelings mostly scooped out and and turned inside out, and he can barely think on what he himself is. He thinks on a boy who helped people just because they asked. Who helped before they even thought of asking. “ _I’ve never been good for anything that matters._ ”

It shifts along his back, turns, and for the first time, Kakashi sees gnarled arms circle his waist. They look like tree barks, chipping and rough, black veins running river-slick from the tips of its fingers to somewhere behind him. They curl, deceptively gentle, right hand gripping his left hip, left hand curling around his ribs to rest on the right side of his ribcage.

It’s almost threatening, but as long as it doesn’t reach for his eye, Kakashi doesn’t care. It taps its code on his ribs.

_why_

Kakashi hums a question.

_bad world_

He laughs. It feels like talking to a mute child. “ _It is. Nothing we can do about it. Time marches on, dead people don’t come back. We deal,_ ” he stifles something he’s not sure would have come out as a sob or a laugh, “ _Or pretend to._ ”

_lie_

Kakashi sighs. Uncurls just enough to rest his hands over the ones around his torso. “ _I know, I’m a bad liar. I don’t deal,_ ” he says simply, “ _There’s nothing else for me._ ”

_caretaker_

He pauses. Stares blankly into the darkness. “ _Is making a family of his own. What space can he give to someone who’s past their death date? I don’t want anyone trading places with me again. There’ve been enough._ ”

It doesn’t answer. Kakashi smiles bitterly. Even this presence finds no fault in his logic.

Instead, it curls around him, blanketing him in its hate and grudge and violence, and Kakashi can’t find it in himself to panic even as he’s smothered. It’s bigger than him, branching arms and black veins, curling further until Kakashi can’t even see the strange light of this world.

There’s only the smell of sulphur and salt, and darkness, and rotting wood inside his chrysalis.

Kakashi closes his eyes, and sleeps.

* * *

He’s in the hospital when he wakes. Confused, he sits up on the bed. Takes stock of his limbs, his head, his body.

Nothing is wrong.

The nurse that sees him leave the room doesn’t think so, immediately ushering him back inside and calling Minato.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Minato asks him cautiously.

“Uh,” Kakashi eyes him. There’s nothing wrong with him? He doesn’t feel any wounds, any bleeding, his head is not addled, so, why? “Going to sleep.”

“Kakashi,” Minato starts, then falters. Kakashi is just confused. Minato looks like he expects Kakashi to freak out at any moment, “You’ve been asleep for three days.”

“Oh,” he says, “Is that all?”

* * *

They only let him go after a thorough check up, but Kakashi feels far too balanced to be annoyed. The sun is up, the earth is down, there is nothing to be worried about.

The black veins only bloom on his skin once he’s back home and alone. He admires them in the mirror, taking care not to be visible through the window where Minato’s guards keep a lookout for someone trying to poison him, or something equally ridiculous.

He hasn’t been poisoned, he knows, he just slept his tiredness away.

“They seem to think you’re going to drop dead at any moment.”

Kakashi hums, throwing his clothes on and moving to the kitchen, where she is. There are mostly ration bars, and she gives him a judging look.

“You need better nourishment and you know it,” she says matter-of-fact, spinning a senbon between her fingers.

“And you shouldn’t steal Genma’s senbon, Rin,” he tells her, amused, “He’s bound to miss it. Especially if it’s one of the poisoned ones.”

“Hmm,” she eyes the senbon for a moment, “It’s not. Poisoned, I mean.”

“Still,” he shrugs at her, chewing a couple of bars and packing some dry fruit packets, “Not a good idea to nick the weapons of the Hokage’s guard.”

“It’ll be fine,” Rin rolls her eyes, tucking it into her apron, “Besides, we’re going to give it back anyways.”

Kakashi packs quickly, not his usual mission pack, but a tiny pack with his only really important possessions. A photo of his father, a photo of Team Minato, Sakumo’s scarf, Rin’s kit and Kushina’s necklace. It goes tied tightly over his body, hidden in between his clothes, and he leaves everything else.

Everything else is either broken or without value, anyway.

“Ready?” Rin asks, sliding off the table she was sitting on.

“As I’ll ever be,” Kakashi throws back with a quirk of his lips, even as he pulls the mask back up.

“Then let’s go say hi to Minato-sensei!” she chirps.

* * *

It’s disturbingly easy to isolate and bring down Minato in his office, even with Kakashi being his student. Rin clucks at the ANBU that are half hallucinating, half caught in _genjutsu_. Kakashi ignores her, trying to rouse Minato just enough to talk to him.

“...kashi?” the blond squints at him, bewildered, “Ow…” he’d taken a nasty hit to the head that Kakashi hadn’t been able to prevent, and Rin had been too busy gleefully throwing Genma’s senbon to help.

“Sorry about that, sensei,” Kakashi prods the lump with careful fingers, noting there was no chance for concussion even as his teacher-- _his Hokage_ \-- winced.

“What… what’s going on?” even half-drugged, Minato still has enough brain power to catalogue and analise the situation.

“We need to be quick,” Rin sighs, flicking one last senbon at the ANBU that was beginning to shake himself awake. Was.

Kakashi ignores her again, paying attention to how Minato’s face is changing from sleepy confusion to wounded betrayal. “Sensei, I need a favor.”

“Kakashi… why?” the look in his blue eyes is _painful_ , and for the first time in a long, _long_ , while, Kakashi feels his heart twist in his chest.

“Sorry for the force,” he says mournfully, “But this is the only way to do it. I need a favor, sensei.”

“What is it?” Minato asks warily, and Kakashi can almost _see_ the cogs turning in the man’s head, how he can subdue Kakashi and bring him in. This is a military village, after all, and traitors are not suffered easily.

“I need you to declare me a missing nin with mental instability.”

Rin scoffs from where she’s guarding the door, but doesn’t say anything. They’d already had this argument on the way, but regardless of who’s right, Kakashi needs the diagnosis. Of a sorts. Minato pauses as he stares in surprise. “I would only declare you missing nin if you were not in the village,” he says slowly.

Kakashi nods. “I know. Which is why I’m leaving as soon as I finish talking to you.”

His teacher’s face goes white in horror.

“Sensei,” Rin begins, if a bit haltingly, “You and Kushina-san are going to move together soon, right? You have to be careful,” she stops, a strange look crossing her face.

“There’s someone out there that wants what she has,” Kakashi continues, and Minato’s eyes are locked on his face, it’s disconcerting when he realises the blond hasn’t blinked since Kushina was mentioned, “You have to be more than careful, you have to be outright _paranoid_ , sensei. Whatever you think is enough, _is not_.”

Minato hisses a startled breath. “How do you know this?”

Kakashi tilts his head at him. Studies how Minato is assessing him like real danger, now. “Not me,” he assures him, straightening the man from where his paralyzed body had begun to list to the side, “But I don’t have evidence. Nothing that anyone will believe, anyway.”

“You should let me decide that,” the man tells him, and Kakashi realizes that he’s either made a terrible enemy or the best ally he could ask for. Rin fidgets.

“Sensei,” he says mournfully, “Please listen. This person _wants_. They’re ruthless, and won’t stop. They have _information_ , sensei. They have the power to back it up. You _need_ to be paranoid when dealing with this. Trust me when I say that anything you think is enough, _isn’t_. If you think it’s too many precautions, _they’re still not enough_.”

He breathes deeply, and Rin makes a sad hum. “Twenty minutes,” she tells him. Minato is eyeing him still, and Kakashi wishes he’d just blink.

“I’ll be paranoid,” Minato cuts in softly, and Rin beams, “I’ll do everything and more. Now, leaving… why?”

“I’m not sure,” and here Kakashi throws a baleful look at Rin, “I mean, I know why I need to leave, but I’m not sure it can be done…” he winces. Minato frowns at him.

“I can’t just slap your file with ‘mental instability’, Kakashi,” he mutters, trying to wiggle his fingers. Rin’s aim and Genma’s paralytic poison are enough, however.

“Yes, you can,” Kakashi sighs, “Because I’m seeing Rin.”

* * *

Minato had been surprisingly easy to convince, given the circumstances. All he’d needed to do was repeat a word Rin told him, and Minato had gone deathly quiet.

Blasting out of the Hokage tower was another thing entirely, especially because it meant that half the _shinobi_ force on duty had given chase. _Especially_ once Minato’s parting gift was seen-- a jagged, deep cut over the Konoha symbol on his headband, not a straight line like most rogue nin.

But that was exactly what Kakashi wanted. Visibility. Rin had said he needed his mint-new status to reach far and wide, and he hoped this kind of visibility did so. Minato needed to slap his file with ‘hallucinations of dead teammate’, and he’d be set.

He really hopes it works.

Whatever it is.

He leaves Konoha behind with a faint twinge of regret, but Rin shushes any sadness he might have felt.

(For being a sign of him being a traitor, Kakashi is stupidly proud of the cut on his headband. Minato taking advantage of one second of distraction, and Kakashi is _delighted_ he was taken this seriously.)


End file.
